In This Moment
by Aunt Kathy
Summary: Unimatrix Zero A/U. The ending of the episode was a little bit too smooth for my liking, so I've decided to change it for this. Janeway/Seven pairing.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: I have been a little reluctant to post this, but here it is. My muse kicked me yesterday for being lazy where my fic is concerned, so I have promised to be a little better from now on. But only a little. ;)

Dedications: Oystercatcher1. She knows why.

Thank yous: MSV for betaing this chapter. Thanks, bab. I owe you one.

Now, then, that's enough from me. Enjoy the fic. :)

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The ship shook violently as the Borg cube fired at the shield generators. However, none of the ship's bridge crew were concerned about their shields at the moment. Chakotay, who was currently the most senior officer on board, had just given the order to beam out the away team. So far, all attempts had been unsuccessful.

Tom Paris was working as fast as he could, narrowing the angular confinement beam as much as possible in order to get B'Elanna, Tuvok, and the captain out. However, with the shielding in that area of the cube still partially intact, it was taking a lot longer to beam the away team out than expected. He almost had a lock on two of them, but the third was still out of reach, buried further within the cube than the others. However, sensors could not detect who it was, only what medical condition they were in.

"Chakotay, I can't get a lock on all of them, the interference is too great."

Chakotay knew he had to make a snap decision, but the order he gave was one that he had wished he would never have to. "Get whomever you can out of there! Energize!"

Tom clenched his jaw and initiated the transport. The two crewmembers that had been successfully retrieved were sent to Sickbay, where the Doctor was already on standby with a medical team.

"Get us out of here, Ensign!" came the call from behind him, but Tom wasn't about to give up on the third signature. Tom's hands flew over the controls as he tried desperately to compensate for the interference created by the destabilizing cube. He could see the damage beginning to spread as the vessel in front of them was ripped apart. Medical alerts came up on his console as the heart rate of the third signature spiked dramatically. His own heart stopped as the transporters locked on to the last remaining Starfleet officer and the beam out was initiated. The interference was still there, but if they were lucky, all three members of the away team had made it home. If this didn't work, they were going to lose the third member.

"NOW, TOM!" bellowed Chakotay, knowing that it was no longer possible for them to stay in such proximity to the disintegrating cube.

"Aye, sir!" The pilot initiated maximum impulse to get them out of there, but they couldn't quite out-run the blast wave, and the ship shook violently before finally jumping to warp. They might be safe from the Borg for now, but they were not out of the woods yet.

Tom's heart was pounding as Chakotay shut down the red alert before addressing him again. "Get down to Sickbay, Paris. Something tells me that the Doctor could use the extra pair of hands."

The younger man nodded briefly before dashing to the turbolift and jumping inside. Given the medical readout from the transport, the Doctor would need all the help he could get.

"Deck Five!" he shouted as the doors slid shut behind him. Tom couldn't remember the last time he was quite so scared. The possibilities of what he would encounter in Sickbay flashed across his vision and he shook his head, trying to drive out the images of B'Elanna lying dead on a biobed, the mottled gray skin of her cold corpse covered in Borg implants. She'd hate it if he saw her like that; he didn't want that to be the last image he had of her.

His only regret was not having settled with her, not having asked her to marry him. But there was a possibility that the last person to be beamed out was not B'Elanna, and that whoever it was, wasn't dead. Tom tried hard not to find relief in that slim chance, but the pain that knifed at his chest abated slightly at the thought that it had been another member of the away team. However, the guilt that settled in the pit of his stomach at the relief quickly cancelled out the joy.

The turbolift doors opened and Tom pushed all emotions from his mind. He needed to remain objective during this. He sprinted down the hall towards Sickbay, but the agonized screams coming from inside could be heard halfway down the corridor.

The doors parted and Tom glanced around to assess the situation within. However, the scene in front of him was one that he was not prepared for. He saw two members of the away team lying on two biobeds and was relieved to see that the two in question were Tuvok and B'Elanna. Both of them seemed relatively unscathed. The joy in his heart surged as his eyes saw B'Elanna, but the moment was short lived as the scent of charred human flesh reached his nostrils and cut through the elation at seeing his girlfriend. His heart was gripped by an icy fear as a blood-curdling screech from the other side of the room rang out sharply.

Tom turned to see three people struggling to hold down the third member of the away team, or rather what was left of her. Captain Janeway's Borg appearance was something that Tom could have dealt with, but the skin exposed was another matter. He could not see a single square centimeter where the mottled gray tissue had not been burned. Angry red and inflamed skin crusted over Janeway's molten flesh. Blood vessels had split and burst under the charred surface, blood seeping between the cracks and stinging exposed nerve endings.

The captain's features were twisted in the pain, blistered skin pulled taught as she screamed wordlessly, the sharp sound reverberating off the sterile walls of Sickbay. Tom rushed to the Doctor's side, grabbing a fallen hypospray at the holographic foot of the physician. The EMH had been ready to administer it as Janeway's small form materialized in Sickbay minutes beforehand, but he had been unable to give it to her amidst her fit. Paris pressed it to an exposed area of flesh on the captain's neck, helping to hold her steady as her thrashing subsided. She whimpered and mumbled for a moment, then stilled.

He swallowed as his eyes raked over her burnt body, Borg implants twisted and bent out of shape due to the heat, almost certainly seared into the flesh below. He could recognize her, but only just. The proud line of her jaw stood out against her charred skin. The entire upper layer of the dermis had been damaged, and the burns were severe. Even Tom's limited medical knowledge allowed him to realize that there would be no way she could survive this without severe scarring.

Dazed, he helped the Doctor see to her damaged body while the junior medical team saw to B'Elanna and Tuvok. Neither of them had been burned as badly as the captain, but Tom knew that was because they had been in a completely different area of the cube.

"Our first priority," ordered the Doctor, "is to remove as much of the Borg technology as possible. Her nanoprobes are already starting on the deeper tissue damage, but in order to ensure that her human systems will be able to reassert themselves, we have to remove the technology now before it becomes too deeply ingrained in her body. Once we have completed that, we will be able to take care of her other injuries."

He picked up a medical tricorder and began scanning the captain, trying to locate the best place to start removing the Borg technology.

"Doc, you know as well as I do that the captain isn't ever going to be the same after this."

The EMH clenched his jaw and looked at the man next to him. "I agree it is unlikely that we will be able to revert her to her original appearance, but right now we have to do the best we can to ensure that her biological systems will be able to take over once this is over. Before that happens, we can't even begin to treat her burns."

Tom nodded and followed the Doctor's lead as they set to work on Janeway. This ship desperately needed her captain, and he was hoping for a miracle.

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Thanks for reading. :)


	2. Chapter 2

For disclaimers and author's notes see Chapter 1.

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The first thing Seven became aware of was the pain: a sharp stabbing sensation that emanated from the back of her head and seemed to travel the full length of her body. It was excruciating. She tried to keep her body still, to focus on her breathing, on any train of thought that could distract her from the pulse of agony radiating out from the base of her skull.

But the pain was a good thing. It meant she was alive. As long as she could feel pain, Seven knew she was still on _Voyager_, still able to tell _her_ the truth, still able to say that-

She couldn't remember what she had wanted so desperately to say to her. One moment she was looking at the destruction around her, the slow unraveling of Unimatrix Zero, the dreams of millions of drones slowly being eaten away, and then… then…

_Then I realized… how much I... loved... no... not 'loved'... _love_ her..._

The one person she wanted to be with in that moment was not the one who had just vanished, one that she had presumed to love while she was in the collective, but a person she had grown to care for since then. A woman who had been there for her for the last three years, whom she had loved all this time. The one person's face she would want to see before she was gone from with world forever. The one person she would do anything for. She just hadn't known what to call it. Not until now.

_I love her... I am in love with her... _

Finding this to be the thought that eased the pain somewhat, she tried to open her eyes, but the light she encountered was too bright and stung her retinas. She closed them again hastily, only opening them slightly: this time Seven kept her eyes shielded somewhat by her lashes as she squinted through them.

_I need… I need to tell her...what she… she means to me… _

The light faded again as the darkness claimed her pain once more, dragging her along with it.

The second thing she became aware of was a small hand on hers, a high voice calling her name. This time Seven was too weak to even register the pain as her nanoprobes work to repair the damage. She couldn't feel it as they mend her body.

_I have to tell her… I need her to know how much I… love her... how much I love… _

Once again, the darkness pulled her under.

"SEVEN!"

Her eyes shot open at the shout she heard from somewhere above her, where a small, rounded shape was blocking out the painful light she had encountered the last time she had attempted to open her eyes. She fought against the darkness, willing her eyes to focus on the figure in front of her. Slowly, gradually, the shape sharpened and she could tell that the person calling out to her was none other than little Naomi Wildman.

"Naomi?" Her throat was dry, her voice was raspy and weak, but at least talking was something that caused less pain than moving.

"Seven, are you okay?" The child looking down on her sounded genuinely frightened, her eyes round with concern. Seven was torn between telling the truth and not wanting to worry the child, but after a few seconds to assess her condition, decided that the latter would be a better course of action.

"I have been better, but my nanoprobes are currently repairing me." She was glad to see that some of the girl's worry abated at this news. Behind Namoi she could see that the alcove she had been in was damaged, presumably from the clash with the cube. The coupling mechanism that ensured drones stayed stationary and upright while regenerating had come loose and was now sparking intermittently. It would not have been difficult for her to be thrown from the alcove and across the Cargobay. Raising her hand to her head, she realized that the pain she had experienced earlier had been from a cracked skull. Seven knew that head wounds had a tendency to bleed heavily, and usually made the injury look far worse than it actually was. She could feel that the fracture had healed again, and that there was fresh skin at the base of her skull. The blood around the now-healed wound was dried and crusty. How long had she been unconscious?

"Naomi, where are the other Borg children? And why did you come down here?" Seven slowly sat up, mindful of any sudden movements that might mean a longer healing period. Fortunately, she found everything to be relatively painless.

"During the attack we were with Neelix, but then the others decided to stay in the mess hall. I told him that I needed the bathroom and came down here. No one would tell me what was going on, but I knew you would. Then I found you lying here and-" Naomi broke off and Seven could see that she was fighting tears. "I was worried, so I checked to see if you'd wake up. You opened your eyes, but only for a second. I called for you and that was when you woke up."

Seven put an arm around the child and hugged her. "Do not worry, Naomi. Everything will be all right. You did well to remain so calm."

"Thanks, Seven. Are you sure you're going to be okay? There was a lot of blood."

"I am sure." Naomi calmed a little more and Seven decided that she could ask the girl a question. "Naomi, how long has it been since the attack?"

"About… four hours. I'm not sure what's happened, but I know that B'Elanna, Tuvok and the captain are all in sickbay."

"Have any of them come out?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay," replied Seven, willing herself to remain calm. Naomi had said it herself: people rarely told her what was going on. She reminded herself not to think the worst until she had been told what was going on. "Naomi, I will need your assistance in getting to Sickbay. Do you think you can help me with that?"

"Yes, I can help you with that, Seven."

"Good, can you help me stand?" Seven knew that a child weighing approximately eighty pounds could not lift a woman that weighed nearly twice as much, but making Naomi feel important would not only distract the child from potentially distressing sights and thoughts, but take her own mind off what she might encounter in Sickbay. Preparing herself to stand, she let Naomi pull her arms so she could get to her feet.

"Come on, Seven," ushered the girl as they left the cargo bay and headed towards the Tturbolift.

"Deck Five," ordered the ex-drone as she tried not to think of what may or may not have happened to Captain Janeway during the away mission. She tried instead to focus once more beside her on the small girl who seemed to be calmer now. "Naomi, I will need you to return to the mess hall for me."

"No. I need to make sure that you get to Sickbay all right."

"Naomi, listen to me," said Seven in what she hoped was a calm and collected tone of voice, "I need you to go to the mess hall so you can check up on the other children for me until I can come and meet you there. I won't be long in Sickbay, but I need to make sure that the children are all right."

"But won't Uncle Neelix be up there with them already?"

"He might, but he will also be helping with repairs. I need you to do this for me."

"Okay, Seven. But promise that you'll come up to see us as soon as you're done in Sickbay?"

"I promise."

"Pinky swear?" asked the child with a determined expression, holding her left hand up to Seven, the smallest of the five fingers extended.

"Of course," replied Seven, who copied the gesture, clasping her own metal-encased finger around Naomi's small digit. She had seen Naomi and Mezoti do this previously, and thus knew the meaning it held to the girl.

With that, the turbolift stopped at Deck Five.

"I will be with you shortly, Naomi," promised Seven as she stepped out of the turbolift and headed towards Sickbay. The second the doors closed Seven broke into a run, filled with dread at what she would encounter in Sickbay and a raw need to see Kathryn Janeway.

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Thanks for reading. :)


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